Why Everyone Freaked Out About Instagram Today

Instagram briefly rolled out a new horizontal design today, turning the vertically scrolling feed into a swipe-through gallery, Instagram stories-style. The update was quickly walked back, but not before #InstagramUpdate was trending on Twitter, with a combination of rage, fear and Bird Box memes.

A spokesperson for the social network told The Verge the update was a mistake: “Due to a bug, some users saw a change to the way their feed appears today. We quickly fixed the issue and feed is back to normal. We apologize for any confusion.” But the horizontal feed may also have been a glimpse into the future of Instagram. The company has been testing the design overhaul for months, according to The Verge, and an executive tweeted that the update was meant to be a very small test.

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